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It is having time to think that makes me depressed.

In this sentence, what is the grammatical function of the word that?

RegDwigнt
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Hilary
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  • Is this an exam? We don't do exams. And, if it's not about what your teacher means, what do you mean by "the grammatical function" of a word? – John Lawler Dec 30 '11 at 01:21
  • I am interested in what your teacher thinks of the elaboration of the complexities by @JohnLawler. Do post back for our benefit. – Kris Dec 30 '11 at 06:40

2 Answers2

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The word that is a relative pronoun here.

The antecedent (what it refers back to) is it, the subject of the sentence. Because it is linked by a copula (is) to a subject complement, which is having time to think, the relative pronoun that indirectly refers to having time to think.

The relative pronoun is the subject of the relative clause that makes me depressed (the object is me; the object complement is depressed).

If one wanted to simplify this sentence without much loss of meaning, it could be rephrased like this:

Having time to think makes me depressed.

Or, slightly more complex:

What makes me depressed is having time to think.

Cerberus - Reinstate Monica
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  • It is having time to think that makes me depressed

is a Cleft sentence. It is derived from

  • Having time to think makes me depressed

by applying the It-Cleft rule, exactly the same way

  • Bill kicked the can

transforms into

  • It was Bill that kicked the can

via It-Cleft.

In an It-Clefted sentence, the usual designation of the that is as a relative pronoun, as noted by Cerberus. Or, if you go to a different syntactic church, it could be considered a complementizer for the relative clause (the relative pronoun having conveniently been deleted). Depends on various details of Cleft formation, and how they're formulated.

However, the sentence

  • What makes me depressed is having time to think

is a Pseudo-Cleft (or Wh-Cleft) sentence, also derived from

  • Having time to think makes me depressed,

but by a different Clefting rule. Pseudo-clefting could transform

  • Bill kicked the can

into

  • What Bill kicked was the can.

The difference between the two types is exemplified here.

John Lawler
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    Worried if the OP has fainted. I almost did, as much in awe as grammatical exhaustion.' – Kris Dec 30 '11 at 06:38
  • Part, at least, of the case against regarding ‘that’ as a relative pronoun is put by Bas Aarts in his ‘Oxford Modern English Grammar’: ‘In this grammar we analyse “that” as a subordinating conjunction. We do not regard it as a pronoun because pronouns can function as the complements of prepositions . . . whereas the conjunction “that” cannot.’ – Barrie England Dec 30 '11 at 09:00
  • I wouldn't object to calling it a complementizer or a subordinating conjunction; since it's deletable it can't-- or at least needn't -- have reference, and that is already an undisputed complementizer in noun complements like That she misses him is obvious. – John Lawler Dec 30 '11 at 22:52
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    In any event, the actual Function of the word that in a Cleft sentence, as opposed to its purported grammatical category membership, is as a Fulcrum of Cleavage -- the word on which the two marked parts of a cleft sentence pivot. This handout from a talk on the remain to be seen construction has the fulcrums color-coded, along with other interesting grammatical cartography. – John Lawler Dec 30 '11 at 22:52
  • @BarrieEngland: Interesting, but: 1. why should pronouns be able to function as the object of a preposition? Aren't your and whither pronouns too? I'm not sure I find this condition satisfying. 2. One can say he is a boor, in that he rarely speaks a word to my old grandmother. 3. If the relative pronoun that is not a pronoun, but which and who are—which are in many cases near-synonyms—isn't that very confusing and dissatisfying? – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Dec 31 '11 at 14:45
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    @JohnLawler: I like your analysis too; I think traditional grammar and modern linguistic terminology can peacefully coexist. When the newer models use terms from the traditional one, they should be free to use them with the same meaning; however, if they want to change their meaning, which I suspect is the case with "relative pronoun", I'd prefer if they just chose a different word altogether. A word like complementizer is a good example of how new concepts should be introduced, I think. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Dec 31 '11 at 14:54
  • @JohnLawler: "since it's deletable it can't-- or at least needn't -- have reference": why do you say that? Why can't a deletable word have reference? Cf. I will do it! v. Will do! Then there are countless extremely common examples from other languages. It is called zero anaphora. Sometimes reference is optional, just as any other word in a language can be left out in the right circumstances. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Dec 31 '11 at 14:58
  • @Cerberus. I am merely the messenger, and I am sure Professor Aarts would be able to answer your pertinent questions better than I can. However, FWIW: – Barrie England Dec 31 '11 at 15:43
  • The fact is they can and ‘that’, in the contexts in which Aarts is discussing the matter, cannot. That alone makes it, at the very least, different. (‘Your’ and ‘whither’ are not pronouns. The first is a possessive determiner, the second an adverb.)
  • You’re quite right, but there the subordinate clause has no relativized element. It’s rather as if the preposition ‘in’ has the whole of the following clause as its complement.
  • Maybe, but that cannot in itself be a reason for rejecting the thesis.
    • – Barrie England Dec 31 '11 at 15:43
  • It’s worth adding that this is not a universal view among linguists. Pullum and Huddleston, it is true, take a similar line to Aarts, but the stripped-down version of the magisterial ‘Longman Grammar’, for example, states that ‘three relative pronouns stand out as being particularly common in English: “who”, “which” and “that”’. – Barrie England Dec 31 '11 at 15:43
  • @BarrieEngland: Okay, I am beginning to understand he is using a different definition of pronoun than I do. I suppose it all depends on the criteria he assumes. 2. You're right, that is a conjunction there, not a pronoun. 3. I think it matters, because how can two words have exactly the same function in the same sentence if one is a pronoun but the other is not? I really think that is an important argument. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Jan 11 '12 at 20:02
  • Easily. Direct Object is a function in a sentence, and both the pronoun it and the Noun Phrase the rock can have that function with the verb kicked and the Subject Noun Frank. I'm virtually certain that I'm using a different sense of pronoun than you are, Cerberus, and probably you, too, Barrie. Does it matter? What hashtag you use for a node is pretty arbitrary, as long as the links are coded for it. – John Lawler Jan 11 '12 at 20:20